Word on the street is that everybody's favorite Max OS X-based instant messaging system has now been updated to version 1.2 Beta 6. There's quite a lot of changes for the app - you can view the more recent ones in the full article.

Download:Adium v1.2 Beta 6

Move over Mr. Green Duckie! The popular Windows IM client that is Trillian is now headed to the Mac OS X platform. Now how's that for some good news for the Apple fanatics? Yes, there's Adium - which I hold so dear to my heart, BTW - but the prospect of getting Trillian as well is still something worth gushing over. This goes to show that more and more applications are "porting" their way to Mac.

Cerulean Studios, the guys developing the software, have been able to retain the core functions of Trillian as it is on Windows, Flash, and iPhone. But what's going to be different with the Mac OS X version is that it is re-written from scratch on Objective-C and Cocoa. They've managed to already come up with an alpha version, and it's still going under tests. If you want to be part of the testing pool, you can jump in on the fun via the Read link below, where you can get more details.

Meanwhile, everyone else - Adium fans included - is excited to see the public version for Trillian on Mac. There's no info on when Cerulean Studios will release it, but you can bet your Duckie, we'll be right on it with updates.

 

Have you fired up your Adium messenger recently? Well, I did just a few hours ago, and lo and behold, it's a version update! The Adium ducks are now quacking up to version 1.1! Although the previous update was released just a month ago, Adium v1.1 has actually been in the making for about a year now.

In fact, one of the biggest changes in this version comes all the way from 2006, built on a student project in the Google Summer of Code. The project has been incorporated into Adium v1.1 in the form of PSMTabBarControl, which allows you to customize your tabbing preferences on the fly. Here's the lowdown of that feature:

• You can arrange your tabs on any side of the message view, not just the bottom. Tabs are arranged vertically when you put them on the left or right edge of the window and horizontally when you put them on the top or bottom.
• Tabs handle overflow better by presenting a chevron (») menu, just like toolbars do.
• Tabs are now spring-loaded, so that if you drag something to a tab that isn't active, it will activate, so that you can position the thing you're dragging precisely within the inputline.
• You can have each tab display the number of unread messages, if any.

Of course, there's more to this, but the Adium team is encouraging all of us to discover the other new toolbar tweaks. Other notes from the changelog include the usual bug fixes and improvements. Aside from it being prettier and faster, there's also the following:

• Changes in the contact list, such as people coming online and going offline, animate smoothly.
• The contact list's ability to hide like the Dock at the edge of the screen has been improved.
• A new type of AdiumXtra, the menu bar icon xtra, has been created to let you customize the appearance of Adiumy in your menu bar; you can download AdiumMenuBarIcons packs from AdiumXtras.com.
• Buzz on Yahoo! and nudge on MSN are now fully supported.
• AIM DirectConnect should be more reliable and less memory intensive; it is now automatically initiated as needed.
• You can now import accounts and chat transcripts from iChat.
• Adium now warns you if you run Adium from the disk image. This will especially benefit new Mac users who aren't accustomed to working with disk images.
• Right-to-left text is handled property on MSN.

Download: Adium v1.1

Chat junkies who also happen to be Mac users have a reason to be a little bit happier today; Adium version 1.0.2 has just been released. This instant messaging client might just work better for you, if you try it. It's free, it's fast, it supports AIM, ICQ, Jabber, MSN, Yahoo!, Google Talk, Yahoo! Japan, Bonjour, Gadu-Gadu, Novell Groupwise, and Lotus Sametime, as well as a beautiful WebKit message display, tabbed messaging, encrypted chat, file transfer and of course, the cute little green duck.

Adium version 1.0.2 features the following improvements:

• Fixed the crashes while performing DNS resolutions
• Fixed the situation in which an AIM file transfer could fail
• Fixed a crash when sending formatted MSN text (#5753)
• Fixed linkification of .eu domains
• Various performance improvements to the log viewer when opening it and performing searches, particularly in searching while indexing occurs.

Download Adium Version 1.0.2

More of the Adium Version 1.0.2 changes after the jump.

 

Mac OS X users now have a new way of getting their gossip (or actual important stuff) across the world in a blink. Adium X is finally out of beta and celebrates its first release with its wonderful green duck and a whole lot of changes.

As Trac Software notes on Adium's about page,

Adium is a free instant messaging application for Mac OS X, released under the GNU GPL and developed by the Adium team. With Adium, you can connect to any number of messaging accounts on any combination of supported messaging services and then chat with other people using those services.

There are a ton of changes to the program, but Trac Software lists some major tweaks:

• Added global user profile and buddy icon settings. (Personal Preferences)
• General Account improvements. Accounts can now be disabled when not in in use, and friends can now sign on from your Adium without saving their information.
• Added an Xtras manager for better browsing and removing of Xtras.
• Major improvements in privacy settings.
• Improvements to the default look and feel of Adium.
• iTunes integration is much faster, and updates as soon as the song changes.
• Redesigned Chat Transcript (Log) Viewer
• Optional dock-like hiding of the contact list
• Requires Mac OS X 10.3.9 or later (Universal Binary)

You'll definitely want to read through their changelog before you do anything as it's definitely a very long list of changes. They also have video tutorials for installing and using the program, and that's one thing you definitely can like about them: they've got a personal touch.

Download: [Adium X v1.0]

There's nothing quite like free stuff, and thanks to Al Gore and his tube-powered brainchild, getting freebies has never been easier. Take today for example. Right now we're focusing the QJ spotlight on Freeware OS X's freeware picks for the month of January.

Freeware, folks. Free. For an unlimited time. Not only that, these applications run the gamut from video and media players to programming apps, making the collection a must-have for all of you Mac lovers out there. Read on for a list of the applications.

• Video: VLC Media Player
• Audio Editor: Audacity
• Chat: Adium
• Graphics: Blender
• Portable Applications: Audacity Portable
• Programming: Smultron
• Torrent: Transmission
• Screensavers: LotsaWater
• Utilities: Yep
• Word Processing: TextWrangler

You can get all of the apps above by giving the "via" link below a little click.

Adium X is a free instant messaging application for Mac OS X that allows user to connect to AIM, MSN, Yahoo Messenger and lot more chat applications. Adium X was voted on of the top ten freeware for the Mac OS! But almost as popular as the application itself is the duck that represents it. Originally apple green, the Adium Duck now comes in a variety of colors. Now that the Adium Duck is starting to bloom into a beautiful pop icon, we felt this is a good time to tell you the true story behind the little green duck.

The duck hatched from Adam Iser's (the author of Adium X) imagination. And he wasn't green then. In fact, he wasn't that cute! The Adium Duck was kinda like an ugly blue duckling. Yes, that's him above. The one that looks like a wooden decoy duck choking on a snail. Thank goodness Iser is better at making applications than drawing icons.

Anyway, Adam Betts gave the blue duck a drastic make-over. "I loved the posture and felt that I can give it a much needed soul and feathers. I don’t remember exactl y how Adam Iser reacted, but I do remember that he disliked it at first but it grew on him later." Yeah, what is it about this duck that makes you stare at it longingly..filled with animal passion...or is it just us?

According to Betts the key element of the duck is his eyes which seem to say “Why me worry?” The duck's job is to transport your messages to your friends/families, he wants none of your attention. Awwww...but we have so much love and care to give him!

But those come hither eyes are now proving a challenge for Betts. It seems the duck is due for an update to keep up with the new Apple app icon family. Bett tried to turn him into photorealistic graphic but says that "destroyed that message by being in your face with a three-dimensional head. The original Adium soul you know and love would not exist anymore. Another thing that did not work is real feathers."

Betts also took the OS X icon route (documents lying on desk, speech bubble, etc.) but he thinks those icons are beneath the duck. After trying out several ideas, Bett had a lightbulb moment: "Why should I change something that had a strong hand in developing the strong Adium community?" And what about us Adium Duck fans who spend hours customizing our duck with costumes instead of doing things like making this world a better place?

Have no fear, Quack Patrol! The shape of refreshed Adium icon will be nearly identical to current one so there won’t be much changes needed!

We earlier featured the first episode of the oh-so-many ways to Pimp your App. The first installment focused on HandBrake and HandBrake Lite, but the second episode focuses on another Mac app which is said to be one of the best freebies around-- the multi protocol chat application, Adium. Phill Ryu and his friends are at it again, this time he aims to add some color to your Adium. If you plan on using these designs, make sure that you are using the Adium 1.0 beta for optimal results.

First off in the list of things to amp is the application icon. Yes, we all love that innocent-looking green duck, but with these designs by Adam, you can change the color of your duck-- you can make it blue, black, red, yellow, and violet. Pretty cute right? To use the colored ducks, double click on the .Adiumicon files in the “Dock icons” folder of the download, and you can install them from within the app. The “away” and “idle” sign posts acn be dropped into the “Shared Dock Icon Images” folder within Adium’s resources. (Control click Adium, select “show package contents”, navigate to the “resources” folder).

Next in the list is the preferences. Again, with the help of his friend Adam, they offered new set of icons which brings out the uniqueness of the app. To use it, Drop all included files into Adium’s resources folder (control click Adium, select “show package contents”, navigate to the “resources” folder). If you’re just giving this a spin, I would recommend keeping a backup of the app handy to revert.

Then, the quacking menu. Adium includes a pretty solid menubar item used for status switching, selecting ongoing conversations, and viewing unread message status in a glance. But Adam again thought that it didn’t quite match the colors of the rest of the systemwide menu items. In addition, he felt that the icon took a bit too much space, so he fixed it. Also, you can also get the Adiumy Smiley, made by Adam of course.

Download: [Pimp Your Adium]

We have been covering the Adium X for quite some time now. It has been mentioned as one of the top 10 free Mac Apps around and it has became a factor on why some people choose to switch to Mac. Anyways, the people behind Adium has released a new beta version -- the Adium X 1.0b1, which is all for the improvement of communication and instant messaging.

In case you are in the dark about Adium, it is a multi-chat account client with tons of customizable options, which is such a joy if you IM a lot. This one can connect to MSN Messenger, AIM, Jabber, Yahoo and the likes. With that said, if you have this app installed in your Mac, you won't have to travel from one window to another since this baby gets you covered.

Before you download this one the Adium guys just want to remind you that "backing up a copy of the folder ~/Library/Application Support/Adium 2.0/ before using betas or alphas is probably a good idea." Here are some things that are new in this version:

* Major AIM, ICQ and .Mac improvements. This includes working File Transfer, and faster sign on.
* Improvements to the default look and feel of Adium.
* iTunes integration is much faster, and updates as soon as the song changes.
* Added global user profile and buddy icon settings. (Personal Preferences)
* General Account improvements. Accounts can now be disabled when not in in use, and friends can now sign on from your Adium without saving their information.
* Added an Xtras manager to better handle browsing and removing Xtras.
* Major improvements in privacy settings.
* Redesigned Previous Chat (Log) Viewer
* Requires Mac OS X 10.3.9 or later (Universal Binary)

Since this is still a beta version, there are still some issues in v1.0b1. The bugs list includes some problems receiving some ICQ messages and an irregular crash on mac OS X 10.3.9 in the log viewer. This latest version also has a large download size, but it's all for the good - size is due to the inclusion of debugging info.

Download: [Adium X 1.0b1]

Adium is a multi-protocol instant messaging application for Mac OS X. It supports AIM, ICQ, Bonjour, Gadu-Gadu, Jabber, Lotus Sametime, MSN, Novell GroupWise Messenger, Yahoo!, and Zephyr.

For this year's Google Summer of Code, the Adium team have narrowed down thousands of hopefuls, down to only six. The participants and their respective projects are as follows:

Integration of Jingle (Voice chat, and video chat in the far future, over Jabber)
Student: Alvaro Saurin
Mentor: Evan Schoenberg

Jabber enhancements by integrating the Smack library
Student: Andreas Monitzer
Mentor: Augie Fackler

Improving disability support
Student: Chirag Shah
Mentor: Peter Hosey

Psyduck — A Desktop Presence Framework
Student: Joshua Lock
Mentor: Colin Barrett

Enhanced tabs through PSMTabBarControl
Student: Kent Sutherland
Mentor: David Smith

Allowing the user to separate out parts of the contact list
Student: Nicholas Peshek
Mentor: Brian Ganninger

A previous version of the post mentioned "eventually video chat" but they want to clarify that it'll take a while for video to happen soon.

If you are interested in being a part of Adium, they are inviting everyone to consider joining the development team independently of the Summer of Code, as fresh ideas and helping hands are always welcome.

Kudos to Adium!